A Blog of Personal Essays and Reflections on Grammar and Writing

More Important Terms

Average Voter: Someone who can be persuaded that his/her interests more or less coincide with those of people who have never had to take a bus in their lives.

Common Sense Revolution: A grassroots movement of those who secretly believe that the sun does in fact revolve around the Earth just as it seems to.

Conservative: Someone who wants to keep things just the way they could have been.

Deconstruction Paper: A postmodernist art supply

Education: A risky high-cost alternative to lottery tickets

Executive Bonus: A honest year’s pay for an honest day’s work

False Memory Syndrome: See Conservative

Family Values: Work expectations for mothers

Free Market: The deity

Generation X: The first generation of North Americans that is so inarticulate that it can’t come up with a name.

Global Economy: A happy marriage of free-market economics and information technology that makes it possible for a successful dot.com entrepreneur in Manhattan to order a $150 gourmet pizza from a call centre in Pakistan staffed by people who have never tasted any kind of pizza and have it delivered in 20 minutes by a Polish immigrant and former CEO who can’t afford gourmet pizza.

Liberal: A conservative if necessary

Lottery Tickets: The best chance of surviving in the global economy. See Education

Management Consultant: Advises management on ways to cut labor costs in order to pay consultant’s fees.

Management Theory: The theory that certain words combined randomly will appear to mean something and that managers will pay large sums of money for books, videos, and endless workshops to have it elucidated.

Neo-Liberalism: A renewed appreciation for the central importance of selfishness and greed in human affairs.

Neo-Liberal Heath care: Your health? Who cares?

New Age Spirituality: Non-traditional gullibility

Political Correctness: Extreme sensitivity to the feelings of everybody except Stephen Harper

Pro-life Activist: Somebody who equates abortion with murder but might consider advocating the death penalty for pacifists

Thought Police: Greatly feared by those who have had little direct experience with thought